Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down

March 23, 2013

THUMBS DOWN: It is hard to imagine a more despicable and cowardly act than that perpetrated at the Schell's Brewery this week. Someone shot and killed one of the penned deer that the brewery keeps on its grounds.

Brewery CEO Ted Marti is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever did this.

We don't know what kind of sick thrill the person who did this was seeking. Shooting a tame deer kept in a fenced-in area is no test of skill. It is simply cruel.

We hope whoever did this is caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Anyone with information can call the New Ulm Police Department at 507-233-6750, or the Department of Natural Resources' Turn In Poachers (TIP) hotline, 1-800-652-9093.

Hail, Athena!

THUMBS UP: We congratulate the New Ulm Chamber of Commerce on the excellence of its choice for the 2013 Athena Award. Darla Gebhard has been a mainstay at the Brown County Historical Society Museum for a long time as a historian and researcher. She knows just about everything about New Ulm and Brown County history, or at least she knows where to look it up.

She has been an invaluable resource to anyone seeking information about New Ulm's past, from people working on their family tree, to students working on history projects, to reporters and editors who envy the museum's extensive files and need some information from the past.

Her dedication and commitment to preserving history are admirable, and we salute her as the new Athena Award winner.

She's BAAaaack!

THUMBS DOWN: News outlets on the lookout for juicy quotes had noted Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Mn 6th) has been unusually quiet the past few months since the November elections. But she's back, tongue a-blazing.

Bachmann, speaking at the Conservative PAC Convention last Saturday, made a couple of statements that earned her four Pinnochios (the lowest rating for truthfulness) from the Washington Post's Fact Checker. In one statement, she claimed it costs $1.4 billion to fund the lavish lifestyle of the Obama White House. In fact, that includes all the money spent for Secret Service and security, and the many policy employees who work in the White House. In fact, the Bush White House spent $1.6 billion a year.

Another less than factual statement was that 70 cents out of every dollar spent for Food Stamps went for the salaries and pensions of the government bureaucrats running the program. In fact, only about five percent, not 70 percent, is spent on administrative costs.

And on Thursday, after the House voted yet again to appeal Obamacare, Bachmann stood on the floor of the House and claimed Obamacare "literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens." This exaggeration is based on the fact that Obamacare requires companies to provide health insurance for their employees, but technically, not for the employees families.

Such irresponsible hyperbole only distracts from the real criticisms of the Obama health care reforms. Bachmann should give up making such poorly researched and easily refuted statements.